Would You Rather

38 - WYR: do yoga with Gage Paxton or get benched?

FIDAN

"Oh, good, you're at the rink," Jorgen stops dead in his tracks, looking at me for a moment before turning back to his clipboard, shuffling through the papers. "While the parents are off, can I get a quick check-in on your neck?"

"I mean," I have to stop to let the noise of the Minnesota's rink wash over me for a second, waiting for another stop in the practice play to speak again. "Yeah. I'm not doing anything else that's important." I'm just not playing. I'm not playing. I'm at a rink I'm familiar with and everyone is on the ice and I feel fine and I'm not doing anything. I'm watching.

"Come on." He waves his hand at me, looking down at the clipboard, leading me away from the ice and back down the halls and into the practice facility.

I trudge after him, rolling my phone over and over in my hoodie pocket. It's been powered off for two straight days. I've had it in my hands, just about ready to turn it on, the entire time.

But I know better. I know Finley hasn't texted me. I know I shouldn't look at any hockey updates. I know I shouldn't be watching or studying or doing anything other than PT, looking through our playbook, and... I dunno. I should be hanging out with my mother. Everything I need right now is here. My team and my mom. I should be focused on that. I should be fully focused on that and not Finley Shaw and how quickly she went from eh, the lines are pretty blurry to someone I barely know. How quickly I went from cuddling all night with her, waking up when she went to the bathroom at four and smiling when she burrowed back up against me, letting her snuggle into my chest and tell me about fake banana milkshakes to someone who shut doors in my face and called me immature.

"How are you feeling?"

I blink, standing in a small PT room, vaguely aware of how I got there, but not really.

"Fidan."

"Sorry." I reach up, rubbing my hands into my eyes, pulling my fingers down my cheeks. I need to shave, probably. "I'm kind of distracted."

"I'll say." Jorgen tosses the clipboard up onto a table next to him and returns his hands to his lap, folding them together. "Anything going on that I should know about or are you just a bit tired from the travel?"

I shake my head, "travel isn't the problem. I'm. I got broken up with... three days ago? I'm kind of in a mood."

"Ah." He gestures me to sit down on the exam table and I do as I'm told. "That would be distracting."

"Does... this might be an insane thing to ask. Or, like, rude. Am I kind of hard to be around? Like... mean. Or rude or irritating? Am I a bad person?"

"You ask like I spend a lot of time around you." Jorgen stands, approaching me with his hands outstretched to take a hold of my neck and feel around. "I really only know you as one of my players. But, judging by your quick rotation through guys you hang around, maybe you could be friendlier. You had Hugo and then you were hanging out with Ivan, now Langley. So, maybe."

I swallow, "Finley sort of... told me I was and I can't get it out of my head."

Jorgen stops, pulling his hands away, looking at me with a frown. "Okay. Um. I'm not asking this in a way that means that I don't care, and I do have input on that which I can provide to you; but before I do that, I'm wondering why you're coming to me with this."

I shrug.

"That's not a good enough answer. You know that."

"I-" I swallow, looking at him. "I don't...know."

"Have you told anyone else? Asked anyone else? Have you... even mentioned the breakup?"

"No. They all sort of told me this would happen so I don't... want to admit defeat like that. Also... you give good advice, I guess? And I haven't really spoken to anyone in a few days... so."